We’ve seen the trope everywhere. It’s said by the quirky, nerdy girl on the sitcom; the athletic girl in the movie; the awkward, shy girls, the brazen and outspoken girls, the smart girls, the strong girls, the girls who go hunting, the girls who drink whiskey, the girls who work out, the girls who wear chucks, the girls who rock or rap…
We hear them all say, “I’m Not Like Other Girls.”
It’s amazing just how many different types of girls “Aren’t Like Other Girls.” And it’s almost like there are all kinds of girls, who have all kinds of traits, who all have depth and personality that can’t be summed up in a couple words. So it’s almost like femininity and the definition of womanhood is not a homogeneous cluster of identities neatly categorized into a single box to be avoided at all costs.
It’s almost like there are no “Other Girls.”
Who are these hypothetical, nonexistent “Other Girls,” anyway? And why are we so eager to prove that we’re Not Like Them?
David Foster Wallace once gave a commencement speech where he told a story about a couple of young fish swimming along. They pass an older fish who says “Morning boys, how’s the water?” After they pass on for a bit one young fish turns to the other and says “What the hell is water?” The point of the story is to illustrate that there are things surrounding and us shaping our lives that we take as ordinary to the point we don’t even notice them. We also don’t question them. Treating people differently based on their gender or sexuality used to be one of those things, but hopefully that’s starting to change.
Josh Weed is a gay man with an important point to make about how we treat women:
(1) I am a gay man who was raised in a heteronormative world. A part of this world I have always been baffled by is “modesty” culture.
Even worse than that, many men and women point to a woman’s attire when she claims to be a victim of sexual assault. Just recently, a Yale student was found not guilty after a trial where his attorneys slut-shamed the victim for her Halloween costume.
(8) Newsflash: women’s worth is STATIC. It is inviolable. It doesn’t change with what she does or doesn’t wear. It doesn’t change with sex.
A 22-year-old law student at Melbourne University was mortified after her peers accidentally added her to an outrageous group chat objectifying her.
The men added Eleanor Henry to their message thread apparently by mistake and quickly removed her, but they didn’t realize that she could still access everything they had said up to that point.
Let’s all wave hello to my fellow peers at Melbourne University. This is why I’ll die a feminist. It’s 2016.. Let’s get back to that conversation on equality.
Oh and for those asking, they accidentally added me to their chat group without realizing I could read everything prior.
Henry told the Daily Mail Australia she wouldn’t “publicly name and shame the men.”
Her restraint, and compassion, is even more impressive considering what they wrote.
Feelings. They are not unfamiliar to us and in fact, everyone harbors them. Some showcase their feelings more than others, but we cannot deny that we have them even if we tried. As human beings that we are, we hold a special ability in which we are able to fabricate emotions. Sensitivity is a beautiful trait to hold because it makes you well..human. It’s just the nature of things.
So why is it totally acceptable to tell any man he should “man up” when they let their feelings be known? Generally speaking, why should anyone withhold from having any emotions?
As we grow up into our own personas, we tend to be shown that only girls are able to cry and be sensitive, while guys should never show their feelings. Hence, crying is not an option and being afraid is out of the question. If they do happen to show even an ounce of any of said acts, then they are automatically labelled as being p*ssies and too feminine. Well, lemme tell you how much bullsh*t that is.
As a society, we have done a great job in shining light on very important problems in the world like body image, mental illnesses, sexist mindsets, etc. Just as how women are able to become the victim of all those problems, men can too. But, they are so often afraid to share their stories in fear of being labelled weak. They should be able to openly share it without fearing the status of their masculinity. Why? Well because men are just as human as women are.
Taking that into consideration, why can’t both genders equally display their emotions without one of them being criticized? Valuing a man who cannot fathom the notion of any type of sensibility is not cute. In other words, it’s not cute to tell any man to “man up.”
Making a man completely trash his emotions just makes for a frustrated male. A frustrated male who has been told to bottle up his feelings and adopt the typical macho man persona. What good does that do to our world? Other than not being able to develop any sort of empathy or sensitivity to be able to relate to others, nothing. Just a typical socially accepted emotionally disconnected guy. Cue the F*ck Boy.
